The Secret to Writing (Hint: It Involves Lots of Cookies)

I’m so far behind in updating my blog! I’ve been immersed in writing the first draft of the current book I’m working on and then revising it…and then revising again.

I do have some news: If you’ve been waiting to read Troy High (and if so I have to ask, um, why??) it will be coming out in paperback this summer! Look for it in bookstores around August. (Or, you know, you could go ahead and pick up the hardcover version right now if you don’t want to wait. Or even the audio version.)

I’ve gotten a few questions from readers asking how do you go about writing a novel or else asking if they can write a book even though they’re only in high school. Let me tell you a secret: You can totally write a book while you’re in high school! I wrote tons of books throughout middle and high school. None of them were ever published, but all those years I spent writing taught me how to tell stories and create characters. Writing is just like learning how to play an instrument–practice makes you better. In fact, Libby Fawcett and her friends in Something to Blog About are characters I created when I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school. STBA is very different from the original stories I wrote about them, but they were my test subjects as I tried out different styles of storytelling over the years, until finally, I found the right story that worked for them.

Another secret: I never really know what I’m doing whenever I start a new book.

It’s true. I don’t know what a book is really going to be about until the first draft is written.

My writing method goes like this:

1. Get idea for super awesome story.

2. Start writing super awesome story with super awesome narrator.

3. Oh, I need another character so that my main character isn’t talking to herself for 250 pages. Throw in another super awesome character.

4. Okay, so there are more than just two people in the world. Also, my narrator probably has parents or guardians or dog overlords or someone she has to answer to. Throw in whatever suits the story.

5. Write, write, write.

6. Hate the book. Go eat cookies.

7. Write, write, write.

8. Eat more cookies.

9. Change my mind about a major plotline halfway through the story. Make a note to myself to fix the first half of the book later. Keep writing.

10. Eat cookies while writing.

11. Emerge exhausted from the haze of the first draft, certain that this is my worst book ever.

Or at least, something along those lines. This is a method that it took me all those years of writing as a teen and college student to figure out. When I was younger, I’d save up my allowance to buy subscriptions to Writer’s Digest or The Writeror books from the Writer’s Digest Book Club. I’ve read TONS of books on how to write, how to plot, how to build characters, how to revise, and you know what I’ve learned? There’s no right or wrong way to do it, as long as the book gets written. If you start a thousand books, but never actually manage to finish one, you may need to reevaluate the method you’ve been using and try something else next time. You have to find what works for you. What works for me is to just not think too hard at the very beginning.

Take Something to Blog About: When I first started working on it, the only thing I knew about the story was, “A teenage girl starts a secret blog where she writes about her friends.” That was it. I use those black and white marbled composition books to make notes on the books I’m working on and I write the first one line idea as the jumping off point for each book. Then I sit down and type the entire first draft out as it comes to me. I plow through the first draft, much like people do during NaNoWriMo. I let the story be bad if that’s what happens the first time. It’s not important how good or bad it is at this stage. What matters is that the basic story is written and I know who the characters are and how the plot affects them.

This doesn’t mean that I never outline. I do, I just don’t do it before I’ve started writing. Sometimes I get halfway through the book and get stuck, so then I outline everything I’ve written so far and try to figure out what should come next. Other times, I don’t outline until I’ve reached the end of the first draft.

My first drafts never look the same as the end result. A lot of times they don’t resemble each other very much because once the first draft is done, I can see what works and what doesn’t and I change the story based on that. The first draft of Troy High was completely different from the book that’s in stores. The original ending of Something to Blog About was not anything like what’s in the book now. Really, in my method of writing, my first draft is my outline and synopsis and draft all bound together into one piece. Once I have that framework down, I can tear the story apart and delve deeper.

Which leads me to revision, the part that I actually find more enjoyable because that’s when I get to put the pieces together and get to the heart of the story. I have a lot more things that I do during revisions than I do during the initial writing stage, so I’ll talk about that in another entry.